PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY FOR CALIFORNIA ARCHAEOLOGY
1988-2004
“Modified Lithic Specimens from Lower Member B of the Maxix Type Section, Central Mojave Desert, California”
Fred E. Budinger, Jr.
Abstract
Twenty-two modified lithic specimens, interpreted here as artifactual, have been recovered more than 5 m below the 185,000±15,000 ybp Long Canyon tephra (volcanic ash) in the Manix Formation of the central Mojave Desert. The specimens, all of siliceous lithologies, exhibit technically significant attributes including bulbs of percussion, force lines, unifacial flaking, and alternate bifacial flaking, as well as evidence of step and hinge flaking. All were recovered from the eroded surface of Lower Member B, a depositional unit of deltaic sands and gravels. All of the artifacts exhibit fluvial abrasion similar to that on non-artifactual clasts. The Manix Formation, a complex sequence of interdigitating lacustrine, fluvial, and alluvial sediments in the lower Mojave Valley, is of middle and late Pleistocene age. It contains the numerous and varied sediments of the Mojave River and its deltas, pluvial Lake Manix, and local alluviation. The investigation reported was conducted under permit from the Bureau of Land Management. It was limited to those sediments which are topographically lower than the laterally-extensive Long Canyon ash, a tephra originally erupted from the Kern Plateau in the southern Sierra Nevada.